About Me

I am a 42 year old woman that is about as happy and content as one person can be. My husband of 21 years and our 15 year old daughter live on five and a half acres out in the country. We moved from the city four years ago and never looked back. I homeschool our daughter. We also love our animals. Our daughter has a miniature horse and two rabbits. We also have a border collie, two cats (again), two pot belly pigs, four peafowl, three emus, 2 llamas and an undetermined number of chickens, lets just say ohhh about 200. I have many breeds, from layers to fancy chickens. I love poultry shows, I love fowl in general as I have come to find out through having more than just chickens. Chickens will always be my first love though. I do show some of my birds occasionally.

Friday, March 28, 2008

I normally try not to whine too much on here...but I have felt bad all week. Thats why there has been a lack of entries here.

I have had a fever off and on all week. I guess my body is fighting off something. I dont have any other symptoms like stuffy nose or sore throat.

My right shoulder socket feels terrible. This, like my feet hurting is an ailment that will show up without any notice and stick around for weeks, then one day just decide to be done with me for a while til next time and be gone. It hurts bad enough that it keeps me from sleeping well.

So here I sit, tired, after seemingly sleeping more than usual all week, feeling achy and blah.

If there is one drawback to having animals it is that when you get sick, you still have to do what you have to do.

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I have a confession to make also. Which may be part of why I have started feeling so blah.

Ians work schedule changed. He works overtime three days a week...then one day during the week we go grocery shopping. That leaves three days...Friday, Saturday and Sunday...to go walking.

We havent been walking since he has started this new schedule...and I am paying for it. I feel terrible. We talked about it and we are getting back on it today. We will walk every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I really like him having whole weekends off...so I dont want him to change his schedule.

I missed our walks. I will be glad to get back to walking.

All the animals are fine. Nothing new to report really. No more babies hatched yet though I think at least one is due to hatch today or tomorrow, a Sultan. I think one has died intheshell, but I won't open it til I am absolutely sure. There is no movement, it went to term and should hatch about the same time as the one I just mentioned. We will see.

I will be back on Monday..hopefully feeling better by then. Hope everyone has a great weekend. :)

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

I ran across this wonderful woman the other day. She has two pet chickens. They are house chickens! She even makes outfits for them! (She makes the diaper thing like I want to be able to make for Phoenix, but with a whole outfit.) You have to see this, you just THOUGHT my chickens were spoiled! LOL!

Just the few days I had Boo alone tamed him. He will come to me, but the two girls have not been handled like he has, yet. You might ask, what is the point of picking these babies up as you won't always be able to do that at 6 foot tall and 150 pounds. Not exactly a lap pet. ;)

I want them to know me, be used to me, and well, I want to hold them, while I still can!

I held one of the girls yesterday for a bit. She started to struggle so I let her down. Sure glad I did that..she had to SHOO SHOO as Mr. Tilley calls it...and boy am I glad she got down to do it! LOLLL...

I have to work with them, every day. I don't want them to be afraid of me. I want them to be very tame. This is a short video of all three. Hope you enjoy it. You can see the two girls are a little nervous...they pace the fence but Boo not so much. I think he starts doing it because they are making him nervous doing just that.

Sorry for the bad picture of the three...I didnt realize it was blurry, but its the only one I have right now.

Added a couple of pictures of their enclosure for right now til they get big enough that they can't fit through the hogwire on the outer main fence. Once they are out of here I will be putting the new chicks in this enclosure to grow til they can be released to roam with the other free rangers.

This was actually a very easy and quick set up. the fencing was very easy to work with and the ground was soft from all the rain we had so it was easy to drive the posts in. The butterfly netting you see over the top is just in case. I wouldn't put it past a hawk to try and get one. They are only as big as the chickens right now, so I wouldn't rule it out. The cage covered in blankets with a heat lamp over the top is a 'make do' thing til I can get them a little shelter built that I can hang the heat lamp in. They fit fine in this right now, but wont for long. I also added tarp over and around this part of the enclosure yesterday to shield any rain or wind. The babies absolutely cannot get wet as they are not waterproof yet.

Hollie...I didnt see that on the news about the picture being found a hundred miles away. I would like to know about that myself. Did you find out whos picture it was?

Debbie, that bird window sounds wonderful. Do you have any pictures of it? Also..I have read some on cross contamination so to speak of goats and chickens. I know that coccidiosis is common for both chickens and goats to get, but, they are two different kinds and cannot be caught from each other. My flock is a closed flock so I doubt they have any diseases. The only time they are exposed to other birds is like when I showed, and all those birds have to be disease tested along with mine. Any that show up sick have to go. If its something else other than cocci, let me know okay? Always up for learning more. There is always room to learn.

Janie, these are African Pygmy Goats so they wont get a whole lot bigger than they are now. ( I hope not anyway, lol!) About the horns...I can only say that I know the boys have horns, I dont know about the girls. I do know that boer goats have horns on the males and females, so probably most species of goat do? Heck I am still learning...lol.

Paula, tell your daughter to get those new flourescent bulbs to use outside for the goats. I have a utility lamp with one in it hanging for Derby out at his shelter. We started replacing the ones indoors as the old ones blew out and it has really made a difference in our electric bill believe it or not!

Sunny, just pace yourself on journals...I am alwys behind and have accepted that I will always be behind...just get here when you can. ;)

Bill, I havent heard of that before, renting out bunnies and chicks. It sounds like a wonderful deal for all concerned considering when the child gets tired of the growing animal it can go back to its home.

Jamie, It doesnt mater if the eggs are fertilized or not when you eat them. If your egg lady (thats what folks call me, lol) has picked them up daily (twice daily in the summer) then it just doesnt matter. Some folks may say they can tell...but I cant. The only way you are going to be able to tell if that egg is fertile is if you incubate it for several days...then veins will be visible when you candle the egg if it is fertile. I keep roosters out in the the yard with my girls. I think it is just the THOUGHT of sperm being in that egg that icks people out. Me personally, I cant see it, cant taste it, its just a fresh egg to me.

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I have noticed a lot of folks Spring cleaning their journals. I need to add a LOT of journals onto my side bar...so maybe I will do that this week.

If for some reason I didnt answer something you asked, please just give me a holler and say HEY, YOU MISSED ME! ;)

Okay, enough foolin' around. I got to get up from here and do SOMETHING today. ;)

Hey I did get some journals visited today! Yay for me. :) I went from 250 emails to 145...not to bad.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Snow? Yes, it just snowed here for about ten minutes! Why is it cold? Why is it SNOWING? Its supposed to be SPRING!

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Okay, I had to get that out. Now onto other things. :)

Lets see...Thursday I got the other two emu babies...Friday Ian was off so we went out to Walmart, Big Lots and had supper at Sonnys BBQ.

I finished up the Golden Phonix pen, what was that..Thursday? I think so. I spent all day Saturday making the Sultans a new pen. Thank goodness they are in a nice roomy new pen now instead of in that cage on the porch or roaming around the porch pooing it up. (I felt sorry for them cooped in that cramped cage all day) Poo cleans up though..which I will do.

Ian had a birthday party to go to Saturday. I say just Ian because it is one of HIS friends. Even though I have recently struck up a friendly acquaintance with his friends girlfriend..I didnt go to his friends 40th birthday party. Why?

I found out from Brian that it was more of an adult party. What? What was going to go on there? Strippers? Porno flicks? What???

Turns out while I was talking to Brian about this..Ian overheard me, I told him what was up and he says, "Yeah, I know, it is. Hey, its his party."

Yeah, but if he wants any forty year old friends to come he has to realize that most of us have families now. He might still be stuck in 1985 but WE are not.

Brian decided he wasnt going because it was his weekend to have his twin daughters and he was most certainly not going to ditch them to go to the party. Turned out later the girls mom asked to keep them for Easter, something about they do something special every Easter..blah blah...so Brian said okay. He still didnt go to the party though, he said he had work to do on his new house.

I told Ian he could have any kind of silly old party he wanted but I wasnt going to leave Shelby here and go to the party. I didnt ever really want to go anyway.

Ian left about 4, which was early. The party didnt start til 6. Ian wanted to get there early so he could come home early.

Poor man, his friend thought it was going to be an all out party fest I guess. He was telling Ian after his parents left, he was going to break out the heavy duty booze and they could really party.

Ian said he would be coming home about then...lol. We are 40 years old people...time to settle down a bit. We want to go to bed early and wake up without a hangover thankyou. ;) We love our sleep and dont want to miss it.

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Sunday Shelby got up and had her Easter basket. She ODed on candy of course. Not really, she didnt make herself sick, but she did put away some candy! ;)

I fixed a Ham, mac and cheese, jalepeno rolls, and corn on the cob. I dont know what happened, I had every intention of having green beans with it too..but it just didnt ever happen. Nobody seemed to be the wiser.

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It started turning off cold here fast when the sun was going down so I made an early day of it and came on in. The wind was brutal on me all weekend and I had had enough of my hair lashing at my eyes and constantly having bits of dirt and trash blown into my eyes.

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Troy and Eddie are doing great. I took a few more pictures and a really cute video of them. Last week I went out and found them a nice little house for the two of them. I shopped aroundonline to see what was available at places like Petsmart.com but didnt really find anything I really liked. Most were plastic or something you had to put together yourself, and for that, they were all overpriced in my opinion.

I knew they had some doghouses unpainted but put together over at the feed store that I bought the goats from. I called them up and asked how much their biggest dog house cost. 159.00. She couldnt tell me the dimensions of the house. I knew on the way to the feed store there is a outbuilding store type place. I would stop in there and see what they had available before I went on to that feed store.

Well it turned out they had really nice, heavy, real wood, painted, shingled houses. Did I mention heavy? Wow, were they heavy.

So I got them to load one into the truck and strap it on good and I went the back roads home slowly. Ian managed to unload it when he got home from work, but it was a strain.

Here are some pictures and the video. Ian made the door to go on the goat house so we could close them up at night and they would be safe. I still have to paint it. Oh by the way, I got this much nicer house for the same price as the unpainted one at the feed store.

Some folks asked some questions I would like to answer in a seperate entry. I will do that another time, probably tomorrow morning. Now Shelby and I are finished with school and I need to get this house picked up! :)

Thursday, March 20, 2008

All of these pictures are on Bon Loop Road. I didnt take any pictures over at Jim and Lindas place out of respect for her feelings.

I never asked to take pictures, but after she said she hadnt taken any because she 'just didnt feel very pretty right now' I didnt figure it would be appropriate for me to take pictures. I do think she should for insurance purposes though.

There are a few pictures I want to take of a whole slew of pine trees sheered off over on Old Alabama Road. That will be there though. I will get that picture later.

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Just a side note, I am behind on reading up on everyone, but dont give up on me, I always manage to get over to see everyone. Try and be patient with me.

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The seventh and twelfth picture is, well was a house. This was where the Turners lived. She was killed and he is in the hospital.

The eleventh picture was their barn. I have a picture somewhere I have posted before of this barn with horses under the eave of it when it was raining I think.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Shelby loves him more than I do, she didnt want to put him down to have her lunch! ;)

After a few days of taming him down he is struggling less when picked up and beginning to love attention. He is not afraid when you reach down and pet him on the back while he is walking around. He will eat from my hand now. I took him out in the garden area since it is fenced off from the rest of the yard. He is still small and could get through the hog wire on the outer main fencing of the back.

These two goaties are just the best. They are already just so friendly and sweet. The day we got them they wouldnt hardly let us pet them, now they come running for attention when we come outside.

Eddie is better now. Thanks to some wise folks. The man I bought the emu babies from is also a goat man. He has never had the problem I had so he referred me to some folks down in Fayetteville, GA. The lady I talked to was the owner of the store (Goat Supply) and told me to go buy some Fruit Fresh. Give him two teaspoons mixed in a little apple juice from a dropper or small syringe to get it down him. Well after three doses it worked, he was dribbling some urine! I have never been so happy to see...urine...lol. I gave it to him for two more days and he is fine now.

Too much grain causes calcium stones...blocks the urethra. So no grain. So far as I have seen, farm animals dont have a lot of use for grain. Derby doesnt eat it anymore as it makes him fat. He is on strictly hay.

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The man I consulted in the beginning about the situation asked if I would be interested in a pair of baby emus.

Well doesnt everyone want some baby emus??? ;)

How much?

Fifty dollars.

Sold.

So I went to go pick them up. He could only catch one, the boy. I would come back another day for the baby girl. This is Boo. He is tamed down quite a bit now. Now we need to work on the girl...or should I say...girls now.

Yes, I ended up with all three babies. Why?

Because the young woman that wanted the other baby girl so badly didnt call him on the day she was supposed to come pick the baby up. He eventually called her. She says...

she forgot.

???????????

She forgot she was getting an Emu baby? He says she was lying. She went on to explain that her boyfriend had a fit and said she couldnt have it. So there he was in a panic with one baby left, seperated from the parents, which is not an easy thing to do, and rain coming.

He calls me up and tells me his plight, asks me if I want the last baby for twenty dollars. I couldnt very well say no could I? He is in fact selling the babies, and the parents later. He needs the pasture for more goats.

So I go back over and get the third baby.

You know what. I should listen to that little voice. I told him I almost said to him when leaving with the second baby that if she didnt call or come get the baby to call me. I knew that girl wasnt going to show up and get that baby. I dont know how I knew, I just did.

Her loss. The baby is better off with me anyway. If she FORGOT she was getting the baby, she might forget to feed it and water it and who knows what else, so she doesnt need it anyway.

I got cut off earlier...lost signal to my DSL...so I am going to save this, then come back and add the pictures. Be right back.

Monday, March 17, 2008

First let me clear up that this was not the tornado that ripped up Atlanta on Friday. This was another system entirely.

Saturday morning early, about 6 am we had a thunderstorm come through. Had a lot of lightning..lot of rain. It went on through and was just cloudy for hours.

An egg customer came by...I happened to have the radio on in the kitchen. They reported a tornado warning right over in Alabama across from us. We were standing in the kitchen while I washed up her eggs when we heard this report.

I turned on the tv...they had already started tracking the storm. It started to have rotation. It was going straight across west to east..and we were right in the line of it. I dont mean a couple of miles from it, I mean right on the line.

Shelby gathered pillows and comforters and readied our walk in closet. She got Tip and I got a small carrier and put Phoenix in it. Ian was on the front porch looking for the tornado. The wind was unbelievable. I handed Shelby Phoenix. Everyone else would just have to ride it out and I just had to hope everyone was going to make it through.

I was standing at the front door and he came running from the west side of the porch yelling ITS HERE ITS HERE. At this point his clothes looked like they were going to be blown or sucked right off of him. We ran for the closet and huddled down.

What went on next was something I never want to go through again. Ever.

It came right over us. He saw it. I didnt. You could hear the wind, pressing hard against the house. You could hear things flying around outside. It was all over in a matter of about a minute.

Let me say, I dont know how, but we sustained very very minimal damage. About 700 yards behind us...they were not so fortunate. Huge barn down, huge trees uprooted. You could see the path it took once it was on the ground. It went over us, not touching the ground until right behind us. One house totally demolished at the end of Bon Loop. A man and woman thrown 50 yards from their house. She was dead, he is in the hospital. We couldnt get through to check on Linda and Jim our neighbors that we love dearly like family..on Old Wax Road. They had it blocked and were giving no information. Later we found out that Lindas best friends husband was killed in the tornado. I had tried and tried to call Linda, but the lines were down. We were so worried about them. We could see their house from where they stopped us from going through...see there had been damage.

The next morning Linda and Jim came pulling up in our driveway. You cannot imagine our relief. They lost the barn and the garage. The house is okay. The cattle are okay. Two hours after the tornado a cow gave birth! A new baby, right after all that.

Her chicken pen was destroyed. We went to Lowes yesterday to get roofing shingles for us. I also had to get wood and other things like screws and hinges. I made her chicken pen first and took it over before dark last night for her three hens. Ian lit the pilot light on their water heater so Linda could have a hot bath last night. We will be going over there all week at least if not longer to help with the clean up.

We had shingles gone, a gutter came off the house. Two chicken pens completely destroyed. The chickens are okay, but they are all in little holding cages right now til I can get their pens built over the next two days before rain comes in Wednesday.

Believe it or not, we didnt lose any animals. Everyone was in shelter.

Ians friend Tex (from work) that lives in Talking Rock came over along with his wife. They are such good folks. Tex helped Ian with the roofing and his wife helped me with building the pen for Linda and Jims chickens. Tex also brought his chainsaw so we could help with downed trees today at Linda and Jims. We had unexpected company later in the day as Doug and his wife stopped by. Doug is retired but he did work with Ian and Tex. They jumped right in and lended a helping hand on both ends with the roof and the pen also. I was so thankful for all the help, so grateful.

We got the pen over to Linda and Jims and helped get the chickens in it. They had the road blocked off with tape...like that is going to stop anyone. We went through, unhooking the tape from the orange reflector on a sawhorse thingie.

I didnt know exactly why they were blocking the roads the way they were once the debris was cleared...but Linda said the police were expecting looters to try and go through the damage and rubble so they were trying to keep everyone out. I just didnt think about that kind of thing going on out here in the country. I guess it could though. The police havent had any of that kind of trouble so far.

After it went over and it was all over...I thought I was okay. I guess the stress and the realization of what had happened was hitting me hard and I didnt know it.

Ian said I was yelling a lot. Not mad yelling, but everything I said I was yelling, like I wanted to make sure everyone heard me. I even snapped at Mama while we were on the phone, and it was really for nothing. I never snap at my Mama like that. Ever. I had asked them to look at the tv, they were showing the damage up the road and to turn it on and look. Then Daddy put down the phone and didnt come back, and didnt come back. I was like HELLO HELLO HELLO...becoming overly agitated, by the time Mama picked up I was like what is going on, where did yall go? Freaking out, over nothing.

I settled down later..I got whatever was going on with me under control.

You may see the pictures on tv of the damage and devastation...but to see it first hand, that is a whole other experience.

I never want to go through this again, ever. This was my first time, and I hope it is my last.

Its getting daylight now. Got to let the chickens out and get this day started.

I do have one baby emu...the male, Joe still has to catch the female. Maybe by Tuesday as he has a doc appointment today. I have named the boy Boo and the girl will be Baby. Cute little names for what will be big old birds! I am holding Boo a lot and taming him down. I do have a few pictures I took...I will post them after I have taken care of things outside this morning. I also have two chicken pens to build and I need to go look for a big dog house for the goats to sleep in at night. Plenty to do, so I will post pictures later. We will be going to help clear and clean up this afternoon over at Linda and Jims, so I dont know if I will have time today or not. I have to get everything around here back in order before the rain on Wednesday. That said, with it raining on Wednesday I should have time to sit and catch up on some journals and make another entry here with some pictures.

Love you all, and thanks for the emails of concern. We were so very fortunate. It came so close to destroying everything. Just right down the road...a house lays in nothing but rubble, another with the roof torn off. That could have just as easily been us. Just yards away.

Here are two videos taken of the damage. The tornado ripped right through here. We were very fortunate compared to about 700 yards behind us and on. The road, Bon Loop Road they mentioned in some news casts...that road runs right beside us.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Checking in very quickly here. I have two new additions to our little farm. Here are Troy and Eddie. Two three month old billies. Much more to tell, will elaborate later.

Also, picked up five Americauna chicks Mr. Swint was holding for me...and he got in standard white crested polish chicks, straight run that afternoon! I have been wanting these for SO long. I bought ten.

Now I am going this afternoon (long story, later) to LOOK...ahem...at Emu chicks.

Yes, I am fine. I don't have a fever. I am happy, very happy. :) Euphoric you might say. The weather has enduced this I am sure. ;)

Will be back with details and more pics when time allows...may be a few days.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Click on the link above and it will take you to Mumma4ever's journal. She has a very interesting video to see today.

In my comment to her I told her that this didnt seem so far fetched or unusual. I take Phoenix to my grandmothers nursing home everytime we go, per her request. She doesnt like a lot of things, but she likes him. I take him around to a lot of the elderly folks there to see. There eyes light up when they see me coming with him. He withstands a lot of shaky handed petting and holding, but he is a very good little rooster and takes it all in stride. :)

Monday, March 10, 2008

Good Monday to y'all folks out there in the world. :) We are having a fine sunny day cranking up around here. Going to be some nice warm temperatures this week. Close to 70 Wednesday and Thursday.

The other day I posted a new picture of Rusty. Here is a picture I took this morning of Ruby and Rudy. All three of my babies are growing up. They sure did help me get through the winter months. I am glad I hatched them.

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This past weekend was a great one. Saturday it was really brutally cold, but we spent it at Fernbank Museum...so winter could blast away...we were indoors.

With the flexibility of Shelby being homeschooled we will often go places like the museum during the week. With Ian starting to take whole weekends off..we are out there with all the other folks...the crowds.

Not being used to this, we found the people all around us to be somewhat uncomfortable, but it wasnt as bad as you would think. Believe it or not, there were a lot of children there with their parents, and the children seemed very well behaved, young and old alike. I guess if you have a wild child you know not to take them to a museum. It would be like taking a bull into a china shop! We had a good time anyway.

Making our way home I needed to stop at Tractor Supply to get feed for the animals. We started to stop at the one in Hiram...but decided to go eat supper at Fuddruckers in Rome, so went on to that TSC in Rome instead. That one is better anyway. The one in Hiram tends to be slack. No one asks if you need help getting all those bags of feed out into the truck. Someone always is willing to help at the one in Rome. This time Ian was with me, so he did the hard work of lifting all those 50 pounds bags into the truck for me.

They had three baby ducks left. They had a lot of white bunnies for sale too. Shelby is really good with rabbits. She has three now. She wanted another, but said she would wait until Tyler passed on to get anymore. What a sensible girl she is. She said three was enough responsibility. She has been so good about taking those three out onto the grass on the nicer days. They have been out three times this past week.

They also had some leftover chicks...just the cornish rocks it looked like. They were yellow chicks...so they were either leghorns or rocks. The yellow chicks will be white when grown.

I told the boy at the check out in Rome the story about the young girl at the one in Hiram. He was not too proud to admit that he didnt know the terms and differences either, but that he was willing to learn.

So right there he asked me the terms and I told him what they were. He admitted that he didnt know what a pullet was.

So I told him these things:

A pullet is any female chicken under a year old.

A cockeral is any male chicken under a year old.

A bantam (he didnt know this either, he asked if that meant a 'fixed' hen or rooster) is a small breed of chicken.

He asked me if I could tell a male from a female when they were day old chicks. I told him the truth...NO. LOL I told him it was hard for the untrained eye to know.

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Sunday I spent the better part of the day outside. Cleaning waterers, filling feeders and waterers. Making minor repairs on some of the pens. I moved the Golden Phoenix Pen. Ian had decided to let the pool pump stay open and so when it overfills it drains. Their pen is close to the pump...and has become a terrible muddy mess in there. So they are moved to a dry grassy area. I had to make some repairs once it was moved. When a pen sits in one place for a long time the grass and dirt end up covering a lot of the wooden frame along the bottom. Its not a bad thing as it keeps the pen anchored in some of the high winds that we can get out here. Not so good if you want to move the pen. I got it out without too much trouble and made some minor repairs on it. Good as new now. Oh their legs are looking better after three treatments of mineral oil now. It is just going to take time and keeping on top of the treatments and they will heal up and be fine eventually.

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Now...I did have a header up there that spoke of the incubator didnt I?

Yesterday I found two of my Serama hens sitting on a pile of eggs. I took them all. They wre all quite nasty with mud crusted on them. I took three from the other pen of smaller Serama also, not being sat on.

I took all the nasty eggs in and candled them all (put a flashlight to the egg while in the dark) and out of about 12 eggs there were two that were already growing. You could see the little dark floaty spot in there...that will be the eye eventually...floating around...everything swimming to and fro in there.

Well that was as good an excuse as any to get down the incubator and get those little ones in there and finish them up growing.

So here I go...time to start hatching babies! On the front row are the two I cleaned up (I was taking a chance doing this because it removes the protective layer that keeps bacteria out of the egg...but you should have SEEN them...ugh. I couldnt put those in there with the other eggs like that)

The second row are the eggs I picked up from the smaller Serama. I only have the one hen now...and I thought maybe I should go ahead and hatch some more from them.

The one egg alone is the one Polish egg I have gotten from Kuckoo and Coco.

The last row are the eggs I have been saving for days now from the Sultans. I will really be surprised if any of these are fertile as everytime I have ever seen Rod or the other male trying to mate the two girls it looks off the mark to me. We will see.

I will continue collecting eggs from everyone and keep on hatching til I have had enough. I feel a long hatch season coming on. ;)

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One more note of good news. It has been seven days since the last bait was taken. I think all the predators that knew about this food source are gone. Thank goodness.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Here it is, finally Friday. There was the distant rumble of thunder in the middle of the night here...then the steady rain followed. The standing water is unbelievable here. The talking heads say we need it. I don't know if I believe we need it all at once.

Last night Ian got us one of those wonderful weather stations that tell all. We forgot batteries for it though...duh. He is bringing home some today.

I called Tractor Supply last night and they said the chicks wouldn't be in until afternoon. I asked them what breeds they were getting. Always heed your instincts when it comes to that funny feeling that you are about to waste your time and should think ahead.

They were only getting in Rhode Island Reds, not interested, and Cornish Rocks, why they were getting these in I have no idea...these are meat birds and not really a good dual purpose bird for eggs and meat.

So I called the one in Hiram...and they are getting in Rhode Island Reds also...and get this.

PULLETS says the little girl who answered the phone.

"Yes I know, pullets, what breed?" I say.

"pullets" she answers.

"Pullets are not a breed...pullet is the term used for any chick that is female and under a year old."

"Oh well I don't know that is just what they told me."

Okay, fair enough. Then she proceeds to tell me that the batch is not all 'pullets'. I say, how do you know?

"I can just tell" she says.

"How old are these chicks?" I ask.

"Oh they are just little babies" she says.

"Well then how can you tell?" I ask this because I am asking myself how can she know the sex of a chick, when she doesnt even know that a pullet is a female chicken under a year, and not a breed.

"I can just tell, by..you know, looking at their parts underneath."

OKAY, I say. I dont believe a word of it.

In hatcheries they have trained eyes to distinguish between the two sexes of chicks. It is NOT easy. I have looked up information on the internet about it trying to learn how, but I still don't know how.

So. No Golden laced wyandottes. She tells me I can order them through them. I said well yeah, I can order them through the mail from any number of hatcheries, I was just going to get ten GL Wyandottes now, since I thought you would have them right there at the store.

Oh well, guess its just time to start up the incubator for my fancy chickens soon.

I will end up with some chicks...just not these they have available at Tractor Supply.

Once again, I will be gone all weekend. Ian is taking weekends off now. It is supposed to be really really cold all day tomorrow, but we are still planning a day of it. Going to try to go out to the Fernbank Museum sometime this weekend since the weather won't cooperate to be outside.

I hope everyone has a great weekend. I am going to start mine now. :) I leave you with a video of Blue. I was trying to capture the blue sky and clouds behind him the other day...but it reflected badly on the video, so I apologize for the poor quality. I thought I would post it anyway...he does have a great flapping and crow closer to the end of the video. He is just a sweet sweet man. He always comes running when he sees me come outside. He lets me pick him up and hold him, rub him under his wings. (They really like that.)